Post offices in Taiwan began last month to handle yuan remittances to the mainland. Photo: EPA

Taiwan will launch an exchange-traded fund platform for investors to trade in stocks on mainland China’s exchanges this year, the chairman of Taiwan’s Financial Supervisory Commission said in a statement to lawmakers on Wednesday.

The proposed ETFs would allow Taiwan fund managers to invest in Chinese stocks under the mainland’s renminbi qualified foreign institutional investor scheme, which permits offshore investors to use yuan deposits at financial institutions to invest in mainland securities.

The president of Taiwan’s stock exchange had previously told Reuters he expected the ETFs would be launched in the first half of this year.

The approval of the ETFs is largely contingent on the passage of a trade-services pact between Taiwan and the mainland, which has been held up in Taiwan’s legislature on concerns over its impact on local industry.